[WikiEN-l] Link removal experiment; Re: "How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit", _The Atlantic_

[Charles Matthews]

On 1 June 2012 11:19, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com> wrote:

>> And deletionists have no policy knowledge?
>
> Deletionists are not the monolithic body of people that you seem to
> think they are. Those with these tendencies (though I'm reluctant to
> lump people under a label) vary widely in their knowledge of policy,
> which should be no surprise.
>
> I'm also puzzled by this view you have that removal of external links
> is a form of deletionism. I've always understood deletionism to be the
> removal of entire articles and restricting Wikipedia to a relatively
> narrow set of articles. Removal of content within articles is a
> completely different ballgame.

Gah. WP really needs the tension between quality and quantity to be
expressed by a two-party system like it needs a hole in the head. And
it needs deletion debates whose length is greatest where the outcome
matters least (i.e. the indifference point for inclusion) like several
more.  Further, people who think "knowledge of policy" amounts to
knowing the letter of the law are a menace, as are people who think
detailed policies are there to help them win arguments, rather than
for the general good of the project (it being easier to prove your
point if you assume what you want to prove at the outset).

Charles